Subject: regionalized addresses, RIRs, and table size

From: "Joseph T. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 09:02:55 -0500

IMHO - The concept of geographic based, or regionalized addresses
recently mentioned seems to merit some review in light of recent
other discussions.

Possible positive impacts of geographic based IPv6 addresses are:

* Ability to have smaller allocations within a region without
    bloating the global rout table.

* It compliments regional peering.

* It tends to aggregate globally.

Negative

* Impact of networks without extra regional topologies

In gross terms the RIRs provide Continental regionalization.
The inefficencies of shifting the aggregation level down to a
metro region size may be offset by the gains in allowing small
allocation for local multi-homed sites, the need to bloat
ones allocation requirement to get a globally routable block
being irrelevant under this scheme.

All the tricks required to do multihoming under the current
address architecture seem to inject new complexities into
routing and possibly the interface at the application layer.

Point:

All the multi-homed proposals seem a lot more of a problem
than geographic based address allocation. Why not apply
the analog of Occam's Razor to this problem. If geographic
allocations provide the simple solution, why not reevaluate?
--
Joseph T. Klein
   "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."
                                           -- Admiral S.G. Gorshkov
PSTN: +1 414 961 1690 VoIP: +1 414 431 4231 Mobile: +1 414 628 3380

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From: masataka ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 23:24:30 +0900

Joseph;

> routing and possibly the interface at the application layer.

That's why I proposed multihoming end to end.

> In gross terms the RIRs provide Continental regionalization.

The regionalization is an unnecessary complexity in routing.

						Masataka Ohta

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From: "Ray Plzak" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:23:08 -0400

This has been discussed in regard to the minimum allocation from the
IANA to the RIRs in all the regions.  There has been no conclusion
reached in regards to a policy, which by the way would be a global
policy and would have to pass through the ASO Address Council and the
ICANN Board.

Ray  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Joseph T. Klein
> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 10:03 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: regionalized addresses, RIRs, and table size
> 
>

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:22:14 +0200

On zondag, okt 12, 2003, at 17:23 Europe/Amsterdam, Ray Plzak wrote:

[geographic addressing]

> policy and would have to pass through the ASO Address Council and the

I'm unaware of what has been discussed in that forum, but geographic 
addressing only makes sense if it enables geographic aggregation, which 
isn't an entirely trivial excercise.

Geographic addressing has been discussed extensively on a non-IETF 
mailinglist about multihoming in IPv6 and our conclusion was that a /16 
for geographic addressing where the allocation of addresses is based on 
population would work well. The minimum "allocation" would be a /32 for 
a region with around 350.000 inhabitants, but since such a region isn't 
an addressable entity in network terms these blocks wouldn't be 
allocated in the current sense; this type of address space would have 
to be held by the RIRs and be directly assigned to end-users based on 
their location. (Obviously the "paper work" could still be done by an 
intermediary such as an ISP so the RIR part could be fully automated.)

A /24 (presumably out of 6bone space) could be used in a field 
experiment, but /48s would run out fairly quick in network-intensive 
areas such as Silicon Valley with not much more than one /48 per 2500 
inhabitants while the current usage of AS numbers is around one in 
30000 for Europe and the US.

More than a /16 would be unworkable as presumably flat routing would be 
needed in cities and even with a /16 that means flat routing for 
millions of /48s in the largest metropolitan areas.

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From: "Ray Plzak" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:38:26 -0400

The idea of geographic addressing based on population was briefly
discussed in the RIPE region.  The primary discussion has been between
two proposals - the IANA allocates a /3 to the RIRs to jointly
administer on a global basis versus the IANA allocates sufficiently
large prefixes to each RIR for regional allocation.

Ray

> From: Iljitsch van Beijnum [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 4:22 PM
> To: Ray Plzak
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: regionalized addresses, RIRs, and table size
> 
>

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 00:34:23 +0200

On zondag, okt 12, 2003, at 23:38 Europe/Amsterdam, Ray Plzak wrote:

> discussed in the RIPE region.

Strange. I presented my geographical addressing/aggregation/multihoming 
draft at RIPE44 and RIPE46 but nobody told me about this.

What was the outcome of this discussion?

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From: "Ray Plzak" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:47:23 -0400

As I recall it was discussed on the old LIR WG list.  The thread died.

Ray

> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 6:34 PM
> To: Ray Plzak
> Cc: [email-masked]

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From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:54:40 +0200

> * Impact of networks without extra regional topologies

You forgot "does not fit current topology". This has been discussed
here before. I still think this is a larger problem that people assume.

> allocations provide the simple solution, why not reevaluate?

There is more to aggregation than just routing table growth. Currently
this is also to a large extent the expression of a providers' routing
policy. This is normally an expression of their business plan.

There are enough Tier-1/Providers with worldwide coverage in here - 
opinions?

There is more to this than meets the eye.

- - kurtis -